Ginger to Blond
by Nothing is Perfect
Summary: "I will become the god of this world!" Many insane mofos had said this at least once. This is the story of a guy who actually did it.
1. Rebirth

**I just remember reading somewhere that Yahiko and Naruto were supposed to be really similar or something. And then this popped in my head.**

* * *

Dying sucks. Below a dark pouring sky, a spiky-haired ginger lied face-up on the ground, dyeing the earth red with his blood. Blood pouring freely from a huge gaping wound on his chest, right where his heart used to be. The warm rain battering his body now felt ice-cold. His eyes, once a clear sky-blue, were now glassy and unseeing.

His chest hurt. He couldn't breathe. Everything was so dark, everything was so cold. It was like sinking into an unfathomably deep, vast ocean. Yep, Yahiko decided that dying definitely sucked major balls.

But despite it all, the ginger wore a content smile on his face. He had saved his precious people, and that was all that really mattered. _Nagato, Konan...Take care..._

Yahiko passed on. Nearby stood a sobbing bluenette and a shell-shocked redhead. Konan fell to her knees beside the corpse, wet, grieving tears marring her beautiful face. Nagato meanwhile stared across the valley, his wide rippled eyes trained on a certain man. A dying man who ripped free the sword stuck through his heart. Yahiko's sword.

Hanzo coughed up blood, the red liquid running through his rebreather. This couldn't be happening. He was Hanzo of the Salamander! Everyone fled on sight of him! He was the strongest of them all! Nagato ripped him to shreds and flattened his army in a scream.

* * *

"It's a healthy baby boy!"

"I'm a father!"

"Naruto...I finally get to see you."

Meanwhile, Yahiko's first thought was _HOLY SHIT I'M ALIVE?!_ He remembered what last happened last happened to him. People couldn't survive without their hearts, could they? And he lost a lot of blood too.

He supposed that now he was in a field hospital or something. But did his pals really have to put him next to some lady giving birth? It's a happy occasion, to be sure. But they were so loud. And Yahiko really wished whoever it was picked a better time for having a kid. Maybe peacetime. Ame right now was anything but peaceful.

Then suddenly there were screams. Yahiko instantly tensed. Wherever he was, he supposed he was under attack. His shinobi instincts told him someone or something was about to grab him. Yahiko spontaneously willed himself to dodge, but his body refused to listen for some reason.

_'Oh yeah, I was insanely wounded wasn't I?'_

'But man, my body sure feels weird', Yahiko thoughtlessly tried to say, but all that came out was WAAAAAAAA!

Wait what?

Yahiko immediately shut up and opened his eyes. All that awaited him was blurriness. Blurry moving blobs.

_'Great. Now I'm mute and blind.'_ He was practically a cripple! How was he supposed to keep being a ninja? How was he supposed to protect his friends and achieve his dreams?

"Yondaime Hokage Minato, step away from the jinchuriki. Otherwise your son will just live to the ripe old age of one minute..."

At least he could still hear things- hey wait a sec, he knew that voice. That deep apathetic drawl, filled with arrogance that looked down on everyone like they were beneath them. It was the tone of bastards, and Yahiko recognized this specific voice to be the bastard who claimed to be Madara Uchiha. That bastard was full of shit and only wanted to use him and his pals, so the ginger kindly told him to fuck off and never come near them again.

_'Man, I knew I should of killed that shady motherfucker. Threatening to murder babies and messing with jinchuriki- wait jinchuriki?' _Yahiko paused at that thought.

Ame didn't have jinchuriki, or did it? Was he in a coma or something and then we got one? How long was he out? And wasn't Minato a kouhai of his? Yahiko remembered news saying that the Yondaime was a student of Jiraiya-sensei too. A student that the perv got after he left them to return to Konoha. Wait, Kages usually stayed at their respective villages. And Yahiko never heard of Minato running anywhere outside of his village since he became Hokage.

_'Where the hell am I? I'm not in Ame am I? Am I in Konoha? Why am I in Konoha?'_

"W-wait...Just calm down."

"Speak for yourself Minato. I'm perfectly calm."

Yahiko then felt curiously weightless. Then something fast smashed into him, but actually caught him gently? And then there was a loud BOOOOOOM. And then he heard something of a zip (or was it a zoop?), before everything was quiet again.

Yahiko inwardly sighed. Just what the fuck was going on?

* * *

Yahiko winced as he heard the soft cries of the lady next to him (her name was Kushina or something?), although his mind was on another matter. That Minato guy had left, but both of these people seemed to be referring to him as Naruto. Their kid they just had. Unless said kid was the quietest newborn ever- yeah no. Yahiko could hear the breathing of only two people in wherever he was now. Himself and Kushina.

Yahiko was distracted from his thoughts when a crying Kushina suddenly held him close to her chest, and he was then overwhelmed in softness. Wow her boobs were huge! They were probably larger than hi- wait that didn't make any sense. It was at this point that Yahiko was forced to consider the idea that he was Naruto. That he was somehow a newborn baby. The newborn baby boy of a fellow student of Jiraiya and a lady he was 99% certain from previous dialogue was the Kyubi jinchuriki until a few minutes ago.

Did he die? Is this that reincarnation thingy Nagato was always yammering about?

* * *

"...If I try to imagine surviving...and the three of us...living together...I can't think of anything...beyond 'I'd be so happy'" A dying Kushina said softly.

At this point, Yahiko couldn't help it. He bawled. For a war orphan like him who never knew his parents, having parents who loved him had always been a dream of his, at least when he was younger. And when he heard Minato spout out some savior of the world stuff (like Jiraiya-sensei always did) and heroically resolve to sacrifice himself as well, Yahiko cried even harder. Sure it was a bit weird for him to consider people basically his age as the loving parents he always desired as a child, but it was the feelings that mattered. He didn't see them as his parents, but their love definitely moved him. They were willing to die for him. They were definitely now precious people of his.

Suddenly, he felt it. Something was coming, and would be upon him in an instant. Something he just knew would instantly destroy him. Something he couldn't dodge no matter what 'cause he was a powerless baby. He then heard one of the most sickening crunching noises in his entire life. The sound of torn flesh and crushed bones. The sound of death.

Yahiko shivered, naked in the cold night air. He could feel his breath. He did not die again. Those two must have taken the hit for him. His dread mounted as he heard the pain-filled gasps and sputtering coughs. Something thick and wet dripped on his tiny face. Blood.

* * *

"And...Make friends...it doesn't matter how many...Just make sure they're real friends...people you can really trust...even a few is enough!"

They were crying. He was crying. Yahiko listened intently on every last word of life advice. Actually, he found that he was exactly living that sort of life before he died.

"...I really wish I could be with you longer...I love you..."

The last of their dying words trickled away to silence. It was unbearable agony. He could literally feel their pain, and his own. He wanted to scream. So he did. Like the baby he was.

His childhood dream had come true, for all of three hours. Yahiko swore to repay those two somehow. And he always repaid his debts. He also swore another thing.

That masked fucker was so dead.

* * *

**AN: lemme know what you think.**


	2. Escape

Being a baby sucks.

He couldn't move beyond a slight wiggling of his tiny limbs. He couldn't see shit (And it would stay that way for three years). He couldn't control when or where he pissed and shat. He was constantly sleepy. He never felt more useless.

Being a baby and a jinchuriki sucks mega dick. It honestly made him feel that in his previous childhood (as a homeless, penniless war orphan, mind you) he was like a pampered prince compared to the shit he had to go through now.

Yahiko lost count how many times they tried to poison him. The former ginger considered himself an expert on everything liquid and everything that could be mixed into liquid, and thereby caught 99.999999% of the times they tried. Arsenic. Cyanide. Strychnine. Hemlock.

But he did not know everything. And he knew that. He considered himself lucky that he was able to catch their first attempt at poisoning him, when he was only a year old. He safely never trusted anything they handed him again.

Yahiko remembered one occasion in the orphanage he was at. It was mealtime and like always, he got the smallest portion (smaller portions means more concentrated the toxin- his mind whispered). There was nothing wrong with it, as far as he could tell. When no one -and absolutely no one- was looking, he dumped it all in the plate of some brat next to him. Like everyone else, they tried to make life even harder for him. But they were just little kids. Even with this unwieldy young body, it was easy to avoid their abuse.

Anyway the unsuspecting kid took one bite and promptly fell over dead. The twitching corpse turned green first. Then purple. Then blue. Yahiko ignored the ensuing screams.

Yeah, he didn't know everything. But he didn't have to. All he needed to do was trust nothing and nobody, at least in this rotten godforsaken village.

How did he actually eat well then? The same way he did as a young orphan his previous life. Stealing.

Stealing from the pantry. Stealing from the fridge. Stealing from every possible place under the sun so this body could get the nutrients (that he knew they would never willingly give him) it needed to grow fast, healthy and strong.

Not that it wasn't to begin with. But more to that later.

Yahiko also lost count of how many times people tried to beat him up. Yes, it was one of the ways kids tried to do to make his life harder than it already was. But it wasn't just the kids. Adults tried it too. Drunk adults. Thugs. And others. And others. And more.

Yahiko lost count of how many times people threw things at him. Stones. Rocks. Bottles. Whether the stuff hit him or not, he knew both were bad outcomes for him. If it him then OW. If it didn't they would probably throw more crap or get scared and hate him more. He hated he was right.

Well, Yahiko's fighting style had a very special effect of absorbing hits in ways no one would notice, so it wasn't like he got hurt or anything, but it was the principle of the thing that mattered.

Yahiko lost count of how many times people formed mobs to try and lynch him. Complete with torches and pitchforks. He never actually thought he would see a sight like that outside of fairy tales set long long ago. Like in that one tale where some girl kidnapped a beast and raped him in her weird castle filled with talking furniture. Or was it the opposite? He couldn't remember.

To be honest, these last three things he could've just avoided from the beginning, and also avoided a lot of other shit too, if it wasn't for his so-called protection. Anbu guards.

Every important figure in a village had them. Yahiko remembered Hanzo's guards followed him 24/7, 365, and would straight up murder everything in a hundred yard radius that so much as twitched and gained their suspicion. All for Hanzo's protection.

Yeah, Yahiko basically got the exact opposite. They were super lax in their shifts, not even showing up half the time. Well, on the other hand, the fact they played traunt over watching him so much, meant he could go robbing and stuff in the first place. But yeah, fuck them.

These guys weren't the least bit subtle when they did follow him. Even non-ninja could notice them, which Yahiko suspected was the whole point. When people noticed them, they noticed who they were following, meaning they noticed him. And then bad things would happen. And they would watch.

They even went out of their way to get him noticed. As it stood Yahiko wanted nothing to do with any of these leaf tree-huggers, but the former ginger figured out very quickly that wasn't an option with his Anbu 'guards'.

Shadows of movement in the corner of his eyes. Odd noises here and there. And more. All meant to drive him in a certain direction, towards the nearest villagers, towards their good show. And Yahiko knew he had to go. He wasn't the sharpest or subtlest tool in the shed, but even he knew that it wouldn't be the best idea to let his tormentors know that their little scared weak victim was really anything but.

If he actually was a kid he probably would've thought of this as the work of ghosts or something. He probably would've developed a lifelong fear of ghosts or something.

Good thing he wasn't actually a kid.

Yeah, these guys couldn't wait for him to die. Yahiko knew that most of the poison attempts came from them too.

Due to recent past events his view on masked bastards especially was on an all time low. These leaf Anbu weren't helping that one bit. These fucks were his wardens. The guys keeping him trapped. If he ever were to try to get out of this place, he knew he would have to get past them.

Yahiko lost count of many more things. But these were all symptoms of one very important fact.

They all hated him. Every last fucker from the oldest of old farts and youngest of young brats hated him. Gave him death-glares. Called him demon or demon brat. Or fucking demon and fucking demon brat. It was all just so much hostility that it really just pissed him off. Or made him feel like shit. But he knew he wasn't shit. It was just them making him feel that way. Which led him right back to feeling pissed off.

The worst part was that he knew why. They thought of him as the Kyuubi or some stupid crap. But just knowing this didn't make Yahiko feel any better though. Logic never did sooth his emotions. In fact he just grew angrier. He didn't deserve this. He knew he didn't deserve this. He hated them all right back.

It was actually sort of funny. Originally, Yahiko had idly entertained the notion of just protecting the leaf village to honor Minato and Kushina's sacrifice. Yeah, there's definitely no fuckin way he was doing that now. In fact the former ginger felt a powerful impulse to do the opposite. He swore he would fucking destroy them. And Yahiko never goes back on his word.

Oh well, 'guess that meant he'll just have to find some other way to repay those two.

* * *

Yahiko was five years old again now. He honestly couldn't believe he survived.

It was October tenth. The night of the Kyuubi festival. The festival to celebrate 'his' defeat. Cause everyone thought he was the Kyuubi.

Everyone in the orphanage went to go out and have fun. They didn't miss his presence. That was fine. He didn't miss them either. Fuck them.

But really though, it was a good thing he didn't go out. This day of of all days brought out the worst in everybody when they saw him. It was obvious why. Underneath the layer of festivities was the reminder of what the village had lost. Loss they blamed on him. And underneath that was pain. Pain they blamed on him. And the fact that they'll always celebrate this means they'll always remember. That means they'll always hate him.

Yahiko gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, his knuckles white. Yeah, he felt lots of anger, but to be honest...

He could hear the happy and joyous cries outside.

Yahiko sighed and dropped to the ground on his back, his arms behind his head. He frowned. All this happy celebration also made him feel nostalgic. He wanted to go home, something Konoha definitely is not. He wondered how Nagato and Konan- how all his friends were doing. He believed in them of course, but that didn't stop him from feeling worried.

Yes, Yahiko felt hatred. But before vows of vengeance or any of that crap, the former ginger always put one thing first. One thing that was infinitely more important than all the rest.

His friends. His precious people.

He needed to see them. To check up on them. To make sure they were alright.

...And to be honest, a very very infinitesimally small part of him admitted that he also was a bit scared. He wanted to get the fuck out before like some ninja who lost his entire family to the Kyubi went nuts and tried to kill him directly or something. As in throwing all caution to the wind and ran at him to cut him to pieces or something. Yahiko already knew they tried almost all the subtle approaches (like poison). Things would only get worse the longer he stayed. Or at least he thought so.

Anyway, from the very beginning he wanted to get back to his friends ASAP. But he found that a lot of methods he would've used in his previous life didn't work in this one.

His summoning contracts. And every other seal that was linked to him in some way. He tried them the second he could. Didn't work. Either the second he died his name disappeared on all of them or his name was now universally registered as Naruto, regardless of the fact that he considered himself Yahiko.

His self-created Super Secret Techniques for quickly traveling long ass distances. Well, he could only use those due to certain body refinements which certainly were not present on his current body.

In the end for his plan of escape he somewhat settled for the second option. Meaning besides stealing and dealing with the treehuggers' bullshit, he secretly retrained in one of his secret techniques for traveling long ass distances. It wasn't one of his super secret techniques nor was it the fastest. But it was something he guesstimated was the quickest to retrain this body in while also being suitably fast and subtle. Subtle as in it absolutely left no trail, so when they discovered him missing there was no way they could track him, meaning when he went back to his friends he wouldn't endanger them via tree-hugging bastard.

Training in it turned out to be a little more of a pickle than he expected though. Which was weird. Water always came as easy as breathing to hi- wait. Yahiko quickly figured out that water probably wasn't his affinity anymore. A stolen piece of chakra induction paper told him his affinity was now wind. Too bad none of his techniques, whether secret or super secret or just normal, for traveling long ass distances were wind though. It was something he just had to fix in the future.

There was one other hitch in his plan. He had to keep his secret technique for traveling long ass distances active for a super long ass distance, basically the entire way from Konoha to Ame. That required quite a substantial amount of chakra reserves. WAY more than what a kid would have, hell, WAY more than a jounin would have. But Yahiko knew he was capable of it in his previous body.

And actually, by now his new body was capable of it too, with a substantially large safe margin as well.

It turned out his new body originally had large reserves, which he knew would just grow larger and larger as he grew up again. Maybe it was the Uzumaki in his blood. After all, the only other Uzumaki he knew had craaaazy reserves, the largest he'd ever seen. Ever. Maybe it was the fact that he was now the son of two kage-rank ninjas, with one of them actually a kage. Maybe it was both those things combined.

There was actually one extra thing that helped him out a loooooooooot for this. The Kyuubi. More specifically, the Kyuubi and the seal.

Although Yahiko already got the gist of what Minato intended for the Kyuubi through the man's last moments, he got the whole host of technical details after admiring his work. Figuring everything out didn't come easy. His cute little kouhai turned out to be quite the sealing genius. But hey, he wasn't too shabby at this kinda stuff either.

It took a lot of scrutiny both in and out. On the outside he just looked into a mirror at his bare stomach and channeled his chakra. On the inside he just looked into his mindscape, which was something of a mental world. A lot of important stuff existed there. Like the inner representation of his mind. Like demons. Like demon-sealing seals.

He long knew about mindscapes. He and his two best buds had long explored each others' mental worlds, starting from when they were younger. Something about mastering genjutsu.

Anyway on the surface his seal appeared to be two four symbol seals. Two to be safe, he supposed, due to how powerful the Kyuubi was. But it wasn't the safest it could be. The safest and most secure seal in this case was if the two overlapped. But they didn't. However, Yahiko recognized that the two non-overlapping seals allowed the Kyuubi's chakra to merge with his own, bolstering his already large chakra reserves and growth to a truly insane degree. He also admired how the process of merging was risk-free. Had literally no side-effects at all. Crazy. Yahiko guessed that the night of the Kyuubi attack the Yondaime really did want to start a family. But he still prepared for a worst-case scenario to this extent. Impressive, to say the least.

But it was a shame that Minato didn't prepare for the village's response. Or maybe he did, and they just let him down. Yahiko wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. As far as he was concerned, Konoha was shit. Except for those two. And maybe Jiraiya-sensei. The maybe came from a certain uncertainty. Like where the fuck was he? Didn't the Sannin live in the village? How come Yahiko hadn't seen him yet? Maybe the Sannin wouldn't know him as a former student but he should at least know of him now as a student's son. Practically a grandson!

Does he even know what's happening to me?

Blame it on all the negative shit the village was constantly throwing at him, but Yahiko began to entertain some very negative thoughts towards his teacher.

Back to the seal. Of course after digging a little deeper into it, he found out that yes, there were ways the merging process could be...heightened to the point that there were negative side effects, but of course there like a fuck ton of safeguards and contingencies buried in it to stop that sort of thing. Two of them he knew from the very beginning. Minato and Kushina had mentioned that they sealed their chakra into the seal to help him out. Two years ago he figured out the last of them. And oh boy, he could definitely say they spared no expense on his behalf.

Why had he gone to such great lengths to completely understand his seal? So he could modify it, of course. So he could turn up the merging process a few notches. Yahiko had studied the seal and its effects on himself and concluded the merging process would still be safe. But it would also be on the cusp of being unsafe. That was by fine by him. Yahiko considered himself quite good at skirting the razor's edge.

By modify he didn't just mean slap a new seal over it kinda modify. One of the safeguards to the seal was that any tampering like slapping more seals over it would render said additions so weak and impermanent that a simple Five Elements Unseal would break them all off easily.

If he wanted to change it he had to change it at the base. And to do that he had to break in. True, he didn't have the key to the seal, but if all locks could only be opened by their respective keys, why would lock-picks exist? Yahiko was pretty good at breaking in. And stealing. But yeah, breaking in was the important thing in this case. Also, like he said before, he wasn't too shabby at this kinda sealing stuff.

Yahiko closed his eyes, and was greeted with the familiar sight of his seal. On the surface it looked like a sewer, dripping pipes as far as the eye could see, with a ginormous mountain-sized cage in the center. A cage that housed a certain giant fox. But that was just the surface.

Underneath, it was actually all just a giant and hopelessly complicated steam engine, but most of it was hidden underground so people at first glance would mistake it as a sewer. In fact, the main boiler was right under the fox's cage. After looking around some more and picking up on a few more pieces, he realized Minato's intention, and mentally applauded his kouhai once again.

The seal was designed with the assumption that the Kyuubi would constantly fight against it, or at least have those sorts of thoughts in mind.

Based on what he'd seen of the fox, Yahiko had to admit that Minato was right on the mark. Ever since he personally saw the fox the furball only just cursed him out as a puny human or some crap, roared angrily, or clawed at the bars.

The seal would also give the impression of weakening, prompting the beast to fight even harder while actually being just as secure as ever, and leaking the same safe set rate of chakra to his chakra coils.

It was subtle. It was genius. But Yahiko decided to be more direct. He broke in (while not actually releasing the fox, of course) and modified it based on one idea: Why the fuck should he give a shit about what the fox thinks?

Yahiko will get his power, whether the fox is pissed, actually understands what's going on, doesn't actually understand what's going on, is willing or unwilling. Basically, the fox's opinion would become completely irrelevant.

He modified the seal one year and eleven months ago. The biggest change was in the cage.

Yahiko glanced over at the Kyuubi. The giant fox lied facedown, hands, legs and tails fully extended on the ground. It was actually nailed that way, with building-sized cage bars stuck through its ankles, both hands in one, and each tail, each bar reaching up to the ceiling. In between its long piercings was a truly thick bar the length of the entire cage and as thick as the Kyuubi's head. That bar rolled along back and forth, rolling the Kyuubi like dough. Squeezing out its chakra regardless of its protests, threats, and general indignation, at a rate four times greater than before. Yahiko also had entertained making more of a clothes wringer instead, but in the end this won out.

* * *

"You know," Yahiko had said at the time of the change, as another one of the Kyuubi's roars was cut off by its head being squashed in yet again, "I don't hate you 'cause you look like a giant fox or 'cause you're super powerful. I'm not the kind of guy who's afraid or cares about that sort of stuff. Who knows? We might've been friends."

His blue eyes hardened. "But you killed my parents man. So yeah we're not friends. We'll never be. You, that masked bastard, and this village are all gonna get what's comin. And lucky me, I got you from the beginning."

"But I know you tailed beasts can't die. Not that I'll give up or anything. This'll just have to do for now."

* * *

It was time. He had enough chakra, more than enough really. He remastered the necessary secret technique. And most importantly, as a spymaster he finally felt he had gathered enough intel to make a break for it.

He knew his anbu 'guards' weren't watching over him right now. He knew they liked to celebrate the whole day and night on today of all days.

He knew Konoha had dudes that could track by smell (Inuzuka) and sight (Hyuga).

He knew the village monitored who came in or out via a sensing barrier that encompassed the entire village, above and below. He knew they alternated the sealing formula behind the barrier every so often. And most recently, he figured out all the formulas they used for it.

Suddenly, through the window, he could see bright lights of white, red, green -all sorts of cool colors really- light up the night sky. Fireworks. It was showtime. If there ever were a time that people would be distracted, it would be now.

Yahiko took a deep breath, and promptly sank into the ground. No, it was not the secret technique (although this was pretty untraceable too). This was actually two jutsu in one that Yahiko also remastered on the side for his escape. First was a technique that transformed the surrounding earth into a fluid, allowing him to 'swim' underground. At quite high speeds too. The second turned him into fluid, replacing his previous scent with earth and, well, the Byakugan didn't really see the chakra system of transformed stuff. At least, it couldn't identify his type of transforming.

He headed west, and when he reached where he calculated the barrier to be, he used its Barrier Pass Technique to pass through. Just like that, he escaped.


	3. Reunion

So what exactly was his secret technique for traveling long ass distances? The one that he was currently using?

I'm not gonna fuckin tell ya, 'cause it's a secret.

...

...

...

...

Just kidding.

It's a technique that turns you into water. Yeah, you could argue that sort of transformation technique isn't really a secret. Heck, practically everybody who's a good ninja knows about stuff like transforming into earth or water or mud or sand or smoke or some other medium. Maybe not how to do it themselves but at least knows of it. But that series of techniques has one very glaring and very specific weakness that practically every ninja worth their salt also knows about: If they disperse you enough, you **DIE**.

And guess what? Yahiko's technique doesn't have that weakness. That's why it's a secret.

Okay, so Yahiko can turn into water. How was that supposed to help him travel a long ass distance?

Well the former ginger just went into a river and just followed or sped along its current. And because his secret technique was special he didn't just get spread out and die.

Yeah, you could also say this was pretty limited for a traveling technique, as in Yahiko could only really go where there are rivers, or any other type of water conduit. And that's why this wasn't in his series of _Super _secret techniques for traveling long ass distances but just in his series of secret techniques.

Anyway, Yahiko was currently speeding along in the night, the full moon bolstering his power and speed to a truly ridiculous degree. An extra benefit he had planned for. Besides the fact it was also his birthday. Konoha had turned what he had always considered the best day of the year for him (BIRTHDAY PARTIES WOOHOO) to the worst day of the year. Now it would once again be the best, 'cause it was now the day he got the fuck out of there. Yes, October tenth wasn't the same birthdate as his previous life that he took as the more real life but he was talking about the concept of his birthday in general.

Besides, he didn't exactly know his birthdate in his previous life. He was a war orphan who never knew his parents remember? In his previous life he just made his birthday the day he met his besties, which made it the best day of his life, and best day of the year. For every subsequent year forward. Until his death, where, like he said before, it became his worst.

Anyway currently he was confused. Confused from the info he had gathered back at tree-hugging village.

Not for his route to Ame. That had been straightforward.

Follow this river here, take a left at the tributary...

No, no. What really got him worried was the news of Ame.

As far as those leaf trash knew, Hanzo still ruled the place.

But Yahiko was pretty sure he stuck a sword in that re-breathing masked bastard's heart. And twisted it. Sawed it in there back and forth. Pulled it in and out before finishing off with a final thrust all the way to the hilt.

Yeah I dunno, I don't think he survived that.

But if he somehow did, or if who Yahiko killed was just a body double or something...

Nah, no way. That guy was so strong. He even ripped out my heart! Sure, at the time Yahiko was also fighting like a million other bastards but seriously though, nobody does that! Nobody weak, at least.

...

_"It is the enemy you underestimate who kills you." __Yahiko remembered a certain ripple-eyed redhead say. _

...

...But what if yes way?

That didn't spell anything good.

Yahiko sped up even further.

* * *

_Hmm, maybe Hanzo is dead though. And maybe my buds took over and covered that shit up. I mean, we are pretty good at controlling info and stuff._

Really, after thinking of all the negative possibilities only the positive ones were left. It wasn't like Yahiko had anything better to do, besides thinking stuff. He was literally just a piece of water right now. Or was it a pool of water? A splash? Gush? Spout? Spray? What exactly was the word for that anyway?

Yahiko was suddenly distracted from his wayward thoughts when he suddenly realized: _'Oh, I'm here.'_

For good ninja, normally it would take them about a day and a half to get here. It took him around eight hours, and he even slept though most of that!

Yahiko was at the border between the land of rain and the land of fire. Well, it wasn't like there was a giant white line on the ground and a sign saying WELCOME TO RAIN or anything. But he just _knew_ this was it.

From the river, a stream of water suddenly rose up, taking form of a certain blond little boy in a stolen raincoat. Yahiko stepped onto damper ground. He stepped between nations.

Besides all the worry, a part of him was happy. Happy to see more familiar sights, smell more familiar smells, hear more familiar sounds. Happy to see the soaked canyons instead of lush forests. Happy to feel wet instead of dry. Happy to hear the pitter patter of the rain instead of the rustling leaves from the wind.

Yahiko grinned, the smile stretching his whiskered cheeks. Cheeks that promptly became unwhiskered. A body that promptly grew several feet. Spiky blond hair that promptly fell flat and turned brown.

He was back.

* * *

Yahiko was confused. Of more things now.

Originally, Konoha's info gave him the impression that Ame had a civil war going on or something. So now while gathering information Yahiko kinda expected random explosions, ninja fights all over the place, and helpless civilians that needed saving. So basically his previous childhood, where he had grown up taking cover from random explosions, hiding from ninja fights all over the place, and then, once he got a little older, rescuing helpless civilians that needed saving. True, at the time Ame was in a foreign conflict instead of an internal one, but it made no difference to him. He expected a war zone.

So far he had seen nothing of that. It was actually sort of peaceful. Not that he had ever seen a peaceful Ame but this was nice. And unfamiliar.

He had traveled around a few of the countryside villages, lounged around peoples' dome-shaped houses and talked to people. People who hadn't barricaded themselves in and hid under their beds. People who actually answered the door. People who didn't seem to be afraid. People who seemed happy.

After he was done with each person though, he made sure to wipe the conversation from their minds (and their brains would then naturally fill in the leftover hole in their memory with whatever that would make sense to them), courtesy of the memory erasing seal. It wouldn't do to have people keep the knowledge that he was snooping around. Even if he was disguised. Even if this was his homeland.

Weirdly, everyone he talked to so far seemed to think that the country was going through a civil war. And like he said before, countries undergoing war of any kind should not have its people being so happy. Yahiko didn't press further, at least not with them. For ninja matters and conflicts, he would need to find a ninja, not a civilian.

Which lead him to head over to Amegakure, which he'd sort of been traveling towards the whole time. Except when he got there, there was nothing there. Literally.

Yahiko was a hundred percent certain he was in the right place. He even doubled back just to be sure. But there just was no village hidden in rain in sight. The road (secret road, mind you. Ninjas, remember?) to Amegakure instead simply led to...a lake. An Amegakure-sized lake. A quick dip inside told him that the lake's bottom was unnaturally perfectly spherical. Almost as if it wasn't a lake. Almost as if it was just a giant crater that got filled with rainwater or something. Almost as if Amegakure somehow got reduced to a...that was then filled...by rain...

Yeah Yahiko stopped right there with that train of thought. He needed answers goddamit!

He had so many questions. Sadly, it seemed he was somehow now sort of lost in his own homeland. His familiar yet unfamiliar homeland. It had been a while since he'd last been here. There were certain things that were still familiar, but evidently a lot was different.

Another example was his spy network. Yahiko had contacts spread even in his home country of Rain, 'cause why the fuck not? If he wanted to know what's going on somewhere he'd rather that somewhere be his homeland most of all right? Right.

Anyway when Yahiko got back to Rain he checked up on a few of his secret peeps first thing. They were nowhere to be found, at least where they were supposed to be. He had had a bad feeling about this ever since he had checked up on the very same thing back in Konoha. They weren't there either.

Yahiko was forced to conclude that _his_ spy network was in other hands. He didn't like that idea...unless it was his friends who had it.

Or it was destroyed. Yahiko liked that idea even less. He had bonded with quite a few of them. So if it turned out that that was the case, Yahiko swore to avenge them.

Or it was simply disbanded. Yahiko was...okay with that idea. He had died after all, so if they had all decided to move on and pursue their lives, Yahiko decided he would accept that. And support them. Like he said, he had bonded with quite a few of them.

Anyway, the lack of his spy network was what had made him decide to head towards Amegakure and talk to random civilians along the way in the first place.

Now, after all that went down the drain, he still needed to find a ninja. An Ame ninja. He needed to get back in contact with the Shinobi world, Ame's part of it at least.

* * *

He finally found one...well, two.

One guy had spiky brown hair with a scar on his right cheek, while the other had a bandanna covering his hair and a short mustache. Since he didn't know their names, he dubbed them Scarface and Shortstache.

It was the next day, and he was at the next non-ninja town he found. In a pub. In a seedy little corner perfect for listening in on everybody there while staying unnoticed himself. Pubs were good for gathering information. Every spymaster-hell-every spy_novice _knew that!

Anyway, here Yahiko was, his disguised face and form completely covered by his raincoat. He listened in on happy revelry with a smile. It was different. In his last life places like this were only filled with hushed, fearful whispers.

Suddenly, in walks in Shortstache and Scarface, both sporting Ame headbands, bragging about their just completed mission to anyone who would listen. They were drunk, but only a little, obviously on the very beginning of a tavern crawl.

They were also obviously the lowest of fodder ninja, but Yahiko would take what he could get.

While parsing through their obviously exaggerated tale, the former ginger had three key takeaways:

Shortstache was somehow engaged to a smoking hot blond with huuuuge melons. The dude bragged about those repeatedly.

Ame still existed.

Hanzo had survived somehow, 'cause they served that bastard.

That first one was only relevant 'cause of the pervert inside of him. The last one made him decide exactly what he was gonna do to them.

The disguised blond stared from the shadows of his hood as they slightly leaned on each other, trudging to the door. They had revealed that this was bar two of their planned nine. Yahiko would make sure it was their last.

* * *

"Who are you?!" Said Scarface.

"You better let us go right now or you're gonna regret it!" Said Shortstache.

The typical response to being suddenly bagged and dragged, Yahiko supposed. The fact it was pathetically easy to do so, despite being in a five-year old's body, crazy chakra reserves or not, proved his initial impression of them right. And judging from the clarity of their voices, fear and adrenaline had suppressed the meager amount of alcohol in their systems.

"Nah, you're gonna tell me what I want or _you're_ gonna regret it."

They were all underground, in a space Yahiko had created with the idea that his victims could scream all they want, but no one would hear them. Simple corollary of a D-rank Earth technique. The disguised boy grinned and pulled out a sword from the folds of his raincoat.

In truth, he didn't really like this sort of thing, even if it was done against an enemy. But well, he's a spy master. So he knew how to do it. Plus he was gonna kill them in the end anyway.

"You..what are you gonna do with that?" Shortstache whispered in fear, his earlier bravado apparently forgotten.

"'Nuthin if you tell me what I want to know." Yahiko lied. "Guys, give me another question and I start taking fingers. I'm doing the asking here."

"Don't underestimate us! We'll never betray our comrades!" Scarface shouted immediately. How loyal. Yahiko liked that. Unfortunately, being loyal to a bad guy made Scarface a bad guy too.

"It's still not too late to let us go. We're powerful ninjas with powerful friends." What bullshit, at least definitely the first part. Shortstache seemed to have calmed down a bit and seemed a bit...smarter. And more cowardly. Something Yahiko didn't like since it somewhat implied to him that loyalty and intelligence had an inverse relationship. And Yahiko knew that he himself was plenty loyal. The former ginger now knew the order he was gonna kill them.

He liked Scarface more, so he would kill him last and kill him painlessly. With that train of thought and seeing how nervous Shortstache was, Yahiko had more of an idea on how to play this out.

With a flick of his wrist, he lopped off Scarface's head...at least it looked that way to Shortstache. In reality Yahiko had slapped a genjutsu on his other victim while actually knocking Scarface out with the flat of his blade. Yahiko did decide he would kill him last, after all.

"Damn you!" Judging from the horrified scream Shortstache fell for it. Yahiko ignored this and eyed the seemingly headless corpse.

"Underestimate you? You shouldn't underestimate me bruh."

The disguised jinchuriki slowly turned his cold gaze to Shortstache, and felt assured when he saw the man audibly swallow. Yep, this was probably gonna work. Yahiko fixed a stare so indifferent that the man knew exactly what the former ginger thought about his previous claim.

"You guys are fodder, and there always tons of you low-rankers all over the place. Killing you is no big deal. It won't take me long to find peeps who are less...noisy. Your partner doesn't seem like he'll tell me anything. I'll give you one chance to live: Where's Ame located?"

He raised his sword back like he already expected the answer in the negative. He swung forward, his arm a blur. And then his bluff but not really a bluff paid off.

"Head west, follow the Shinano river to the lake! It's at the center! You can't miss it! I swear this isn't a lie!" Shortstache babbled immediately, Yahiko's sword stopped right at his neck, drawing only a little bit of blood. It seemed that the former ginger had pegged Shortstache right.

"And in there, where could I find that bastard Hanzo?"

Sure, it was a long shot. That bastard was super paranoid with his security so it was unlikely even high-ranked rain ninja knew where he was. But hey, you never know.

As it turned out, this trail of questioning turned out to be beneficial in other ways.

"Hanzo?" Shortstache now seemed to have a slice of confusion in his cocktail of fear.

That...was a question. One word, yeah, but still a question. Yahiko was about to chop off a finger, like he said he would. But still, why was this a question?

"Yeah, Hanzo. You know, your leader? Masked bastard, long blond hair? Has a scar on his right cheek like your friend here?" They served the damn bastard. They said so in their semi-drunken tirade. But...now that Yahiko thought back again, they...might have said the bastard's name in bit of a weird way. Like they were all in on some sort of inside joke except for him or something.

"...You...You aren't part of the remnants of the former Amegakure, are you?" Make that two fingers. "Who are you anyway?" Make that three. But the former ginger decided that doing it now would upset his victim's current willing to talk mood.

"That's none of your concern. But tell me, just whadya mean by 'remnants of former Amegakure'?" That very phrase alone implied a fuck ton of things. Questions. Answers. Things that in their sum total, now just made him anxious. Very, very anxious. Something his current indifferent face didn't show.

"Heh...you really don't know anything, do you?" Four fingers. "An outsider, huh?" Yahiko might as well take Shortstache's whole hand.

On another note, was he an outsider? Not really. He just...hadn't been here for a while. Plus he didn't think of himself as a five-year old leaf brat.

Anyway, Shortstache seemed to gain a little contempt for him. Understandable, Yahiko himself knew very well how much the people of Ame disliked outsiders. Outsiders who knew nothing of their pain, of their suffering. But Yahiko _did_ know though. But the former ginger needed his captive to feel fear more than any other emotion. He was about to bring his sword to Shortstache's neck again, when the bound man surprisingly started talking again.

The dude started talking about Ame's civil war. Cool. Spared Yahiko the trouble of asking. He listened as his captive suddenly went in on some reverent soliloquy for something. Or someone. It was like a switch was flipped or something. More than a little unnerving.

Then, astonishing revelations revealed itself one after another. Apparently Ame wasn't in a civil war. But Yahiko already kinda suspected that that was a cover to keep outsiders the fuck out, so that wasn't the surprising part. The surprising part was:

"Wait, so you're saying some dude six years ago rose up and wiped out Hanzo and his entire regime in one shot?"

So the previous Amegakure _was _destroyed. And Yahiko visited its ruin. Sure, he suspected a little something like Amegakure's destruction too, but he certainly didn't think it could happen in an instant. Ame was filled with powerful guys, not just that tyrant bastard Hanzo. The idea that someone could wipe out _ALL_ of them was...well...

Anyway the former ginger was pretty sure _he _was the one who killed Hanzo though. Wasn't a super important detail as this other dude probably took the credit since Yahiko himself was dead or something. Come to think of it...

"What was his name again?"

"Lord Pein!"

Pein, huh? A false name, obviously. Sounded like something only an edgelord would pick, really. Wait...did hair just suddenly fall in front of his eyes? Yahiko brushed the false brown locks away. He listened on, as Shortstache apparently wasn't done.

"He's a legend! A God! He destroyed Amegakure all by himself!" The second time his captive said something like that.

"He didn't only kill Hanzo, he also killed his parents, wife, and children. Massacred his entire clan!" How edgy. "He even killed everyone Hanzo was ever in league with, including the ambassadors of allied villages!" Shortstache's voice dropped to a hushed whisper. "...Not even babies were spared. It was judgement...exactly like that of a God..."

Eesh. Yeah, super edgy.

"...uh, what does he look like?" But Yahiko kinda suspected...

"No one knows..." Yup.

Man, Yahiko could cut himself on all this edge.

Let's think. Did he possibly know who this Pein was?

Someone Suuuuuper emo. Like seriously. Someone secretive who didn't really like appearing in public.

Someone, like him, who could do the impossible. Regularly did the impossible, in fact.

Someone who would bring peace to hidden rain, and protect it from outsiders.

Someone craaaaaaaazy powerful.

Someone...

Actually, Yahiko did know someone like that. And the thought actually made him...happy. It wasn't completely confirmed yet but...Yahiko just couldn't stop thinking optimistic thoughts.

The former ginger stared into his captive's eyes, suppressing a smile. Come to think of it, these two didn't really fit the mold of Hanzo's lackeys. You know, the strict dress code with a rebreather mask. Guess he wasn't going to kill them, or cut off their hands or fingers or whatever. Another thought suddenly hit him.

"If nobody knows what he looks like, how does he like...order people around and stuff?"

"He has a representative do all the ceremonial rites, the speeches and the issuing of orders. The Lady Angel!"

"Lady Angel...?" A sudden image came to mind: A certain blue-haired girl flying through the air with paper wings. Could it be? Yahiko couldn't hide his smile this time. Then he frowned as he saw Shortstache's look when mentioning the angel. A look he decided he didn't like. The former ginger swung his sword. Hard.

After knocking him out and using memory erasing seals to wipe out this entire thing from their minds, Yahiko gripped them by the collar and turned to leave. Then he promptly turned back. True, Shortstache had heavily enlightened him, but he also sold out his comrades. And Superiors. Superiors that might be...

Anyway, Yahiko inscribed a monitor and kill-switch seal on the dude. And a super mega explosion seal. This dude was a grunt, and there was always grunt work to be done. Yahiko would let him keep doing that. But if there was ever the case where Shortstache found himself in this position again, Yahiko knew he would squeal. Hell, he squealed to Yahiko before he even cut off any body parts! So, the former ginger inscribed seals that would hopefully let him pick up on that and blow up both Shortstache and his future interrogator.

Yahiko swam up the ground from his hidey-hole, his two soon to be former captives gripped by one hand. He dumped both of them in an alley somewhere out of sight. He left, not before taking all their cash, of course. No one goes through a tavern crawl without losing all their money.

* * *

He saw the giant lake in the distance. By a rough estimate, it was probably the biggest lake in all of Ame, hell, the biggest lake he'd ever seen.

He saw the little tall specks in the distance, in the center of the lake. But the fact that the distance was so far and the lake was so huge meant the fact he could even see parts of this new Amegakure implied that the city must be ENORMOUS. And have some pretty tall-ass buildings too.

But before all that, he saw the telltale signs of a certain super secret technique of his. He saw a giant rainstorm that covered the entire giant-ass lake and much of the land surrounding it. The storm was much larger than his eyes could see. Oh no, he wasn't in the storm yet. He was standing right outside the edge, by the Shinano river. Observing. Smiling.

Yep, it was definitely his Super Secret Rain Tiger at Will Technique. A Super Secret technique with a truly _ridiculous _range that monitored for intruders and other bad guys. A technique only he and two other people in the entire world knew. A technique that now completely erased his fears.

Yahiko's smiled widened. His height shot up a bit. His flat brown hair rushed up and became orange and spiky. His eyes turned from unassuming almond to sky blue. His former appearance.

He took a single step into the storm, a single step from dry to pouring wet. But he didn't care. He couldn't wait.

And he didn't wait long. After a bit he caught a glimpse of flickering white butterflies. Butterflies that on a closer glance were made of paper. His heart leapt.

_"Ascertain the threat, then remove it." Yahiko remembered a certain bluenette say._

No paper cuts yet, meaning she was still watching him from somewhere. But if she wasn't too different than what Yahiko remembered, he thought he could guess where. He body flickered, and was rewarded with the sight of his blue-haired bestie. It had been five years, but Yahiko thought she looked just as beautiful as ever. He stared into her emotionless amber eyes, eyes that he caught a turmoil of emotions. Confusion. Pain. Suspicion. Fear. His were filled with pain, relief, and tears.

It made him overcome with an urge, and he pulled her close. She didn't resist. Yahiko knew of the countless paper weapons hidden around them. Weapons that could skewer him in an instant. He didn't care.

"I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner. I missed you Konan." He whispered into her hair. "I know this probably doesn't make any sense to you."

Over her shoulder he caught a pair of familiar eyes, eyes that made him feel even more relieved. Rippled, grey eyes. Rippled, grey eyes stuck on a face that looked exactly like his own-Wait what?

He slowly pulled away from Konan, wiped his eyes, and looked again, trying to process what he was seeing. There was another guy with them. A guy who looked exactly like him, but with the rippled eyes of his other bestie. A guy who clearly had some sort of piercing fetish. It hurt just to look at him. Man, the dude had piercings every inch of him that Yahiko could see. Through the nose, through the chin, through the ears-Man the ears! There were soooo many metal bits they were more metal than flesh.

What the fuck?

* * *

**AN:**

**Lemme know what you think.**


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